Asatru Folk Assembly - Matt Flavel on The Patrick Ryan Show (2021)

00:00:01.000 The Assetrue Folk Assembly, which describes itself as being an organization that is centered around a native pre-Christian spirituality.

00:00:12.640 They are moving into the lovely little community of Murdoch, Minnesota.

00:00:17.200 New York Times hit piece came out on January the 9th.

00:00:19.740 I read through it and gave you my thoughts in hour number one.

00:00:22.680 And I reached out to the fine folks at the Assetrue Folk Assembly.

00:00:26.600 and a gentleman by the name of Matthew Flavel got back to me

00:00:30.020 and he said, Dino, I'd love to be on your show.

00:00:32.260 I'd come on any time.

00:00:33.060 So I said, well, what about Wednesday night, hour number two?

00:00:35.160 And Matthew said, that sounds good to me.

00:00:36.820 And without any further ado, here is Matt Flavel,

00:00:38.960 one of the high priests from the Assetru Folk Assembly

00:00:41.460 on the show on this Wednesday night.

00:00:43.260 Matt, how are you tonight?

00:00:45.120 I'm doing all right.

00:00:46.100 Doing all right.

00:00:46.760 Hey, thank you so much for having me on the program.

00:00:48.940 It's really an honor to be here.

00:00:49.940 No, no, no, no.

00:00:50.820 The honor is all ours.

00:00:51.700 And I thank you even more so for being willing to come on

00:00:55.000 because, well, for a couple different reasons.

00:00:56.880 Obviously, I think a lot of people have some questions about this.

00:00:59.660 I defended you guys vigorously in the first hour.

00:01:02.420 I defended you when the story first made news back in December.

00:01:05.820 And I guess the New York Times couldn't get in touch with anyone from your organization

00:01:10.560 for a response in the story that appeared in the Times on January the 9th.

00:01:16.380 I guess I had an easier time getting somebody to talk to me on the record

00:01:19.740 from your organization than the New York Times did

00:01:21.900 because they said that phone calls to your organization

00:01:24.080 and emails to your organization went unanswered.

00:01:26.540 You guys wouldn't respond to some of the things

00:01:28.080 that were mentioned in that story.

00:01:29.920 How do you respond to that?

00:01:32.700 That's because you're not fake news,

00:01:35.320 and they kind of are.

00:01:38.340 We've got a lot of media attention

00:01:40.220 since trying to open our house in Minnesota,

00:01:44.800 there in Murdoch,

00:01:46.040 and the presses treated us tremendously unfairly,

00:01:49.800 fairly and uh we're really hoping we'd get an outfit like this to where we have an opportunity

00:01:55.340 to actually speak and address stuff because we were very unsatisfied with the press coverage

00:02:01.240 that we got as well you should be let's let's let's let's clear a few things here future things

00:02:06.040 off the checklist okay uh and you can answer either in one word or you can you can uh you

00:02:10.540 know further amplify your feelings uh are you a white supremacist hate group as identified by the

00:02:16.340 SPLC and the ADL? No. No to both, I guess, no to all, but yes, the SPLC has dubbed us such with

00:02:30.220 no legitimate reasons whatsoever. Has your organization, to the best of your knowledge,

00:02:35.960 how long have you been with the Assetrue Folk Assembly, Matt? I've been with the Assetrue Folk

00:02:41.980 simply since 2009 okay so that's 11 years and based upon what you know you've got different

00:02:47.920 chapters spread out across the country here in the united states and as your website indicates

00:02:52.400 different parts around the world i asked my audience to find me all of the news clips

00:02:57.900 and all the images of all of the kinds of misbehavior and law-breaking activity and

00:03:03.600 white supremacist activity that your group has taken part in over the years and i could find

00:03:07.900 none to the best of your knowledge since you've been a part of this group since 2009 can you can

00:03:12.680 you identify me with any kinds of articles or any any instances where your organization has has

00:03:19.480 been involved in any kind of nefarious activities that would equate itself with something known as

00:03:24.540 white supremacy not once not ever um not only and i think it goes without saying but no there's no

00:03:32.180 criminality certainly but there's no instances of hate-filled activity either speech or action

00:03:39.180 coming from us at all ever uh not only to my knowledge but just factually it's not a thing

00:03:47.180 one of the women that was mentioned in the new york times piece of which i'm sure that you read

00:03:52.900 through matt what came from someone by the name of maria baron and uh as it is noted in the story

00:03:59.580 She came to rural Minnesota 10 years ago, according to the story, from Mexico, so her husband could work in a nearby dairy farm.

00:04:07.000 And as the story indicates, they grew to love the pastoral fields that are in Murdoch and, you know, had the kids play with other kids from Mexico and Central America and so on and so forth.

00:04:18.600 and she says that now that your group is moving into town she feels fearful for her kids 12 and

00:04:25.860 14 and her and other women like her from the same area where they come from in mexico or

00:04:31.040 central america have discussed taking turns watching their children play outside because

00:04:37.380 your group is moving into town what would you say to maria barron in response to these so-called

00:04:43.140 concerns well a couple of things first taking it at face value maria if you're listening i am very

00:04:51.100 sorry that you feel afraid i'm very sorry that anybody in your community feels afraid

00:04:56.080 there's absolutely no cause on our end but the last thing we want to do is make anybody feel

00:05:03.360 afraid or uncomfortable to the bigger story i don't feel that us moving into a town made maria

00:05:10.280 afraid i think that the intentional fear mongering of the press made murray afraid yeah um i think

00:05:18.180 that the people that hate us telling i was gonna say half truth but that's not even the case telling

00:05:24.160 complete fabrications about us has stoked fear uh one thing i'd note one of the reporters there

00:05:31.560 early on in the story in her in her own story she admits proudly that she got a lot of people

00:05:37.180 riled up about us people weren't riled up without the the press uh spreading spreading fear and

00:05:44.700 things that weren't true um but yeah to the extent that maria actually feels afraid of us

00:05:50.740 i'm confident that any amount of getting into know us would dispel that very very quickly one of the

00:05:56.280 things i said in the first hour matt was what is there to fear i mean what does she think you

00:06:00.740 people are going to come around and kidnap kids and and hold them hostage for ransom i what is

00:06:06.100 this is this is manufactured fear is what this is driven by a corporate the one of the if not

00:06:11.620 manufactured here in all of the the best minds of journalism can't find one incidence of the 0.63

00:06:21.220 astro folk assembly doing something scary or hateful or mean-spirited or doing something to 0.99

00:06:28.720 anybody else for that matter in general would it be fair to say that you guys just want to be able 0.96

00:06:33.620 to practice whatever your spirituality is your religion we'll get into some of this with

00:06:38.500 specifics in a little bit but am i am i right because i said in the first hour talking about

00:06:43.300 you guys matt i said these people that are in they're generating this this this self-hype this

00:06:49.060 fear over this group moving into town i i think i speak for them all they want to be able to do

00:06:53.440 is to practice their form of religion and whatever parameters they are and be left alone

00:06:58.520 am i right about that yeah well i mean yeah in a way first that's absolutely what we want

00:07:06.600 um but secondly we'd love to be good neighbors in a good part of their community

00:07:11.740 um you know buying that if we're unwanted that's fine but uh at the very least we'd just like to

00:07:18.940 be left alone to practice our faith um you know at most we'd like to be able to help out with

00:07:24.320 the community with any kind of charity that they're doing and uh you know be a part of the

00:07:29.320 religious community of that town but you know not where we're not wanted i suppose but at the very

00:07:34.700 least we'd like to be able to practice our faith and in the comfort of of our own uh facility that 0.58

00:07:39.740 we purchased for it gee whiz matt you guys sound terrifying you want to be good neighbors in the

00:07:43.660 community really wow wow i mean you know i i hear something like what you just said i'm packing up

00:07:52.640 my stuff and getting out of Murdoch, Minnesota as quickly as I can.

00:07:56.580 What is, and I assumed, by the way, that is exactly what you guys want to do.

00:08:01.000 You don't want to menace.

00:08:02.100 You're not there to threaten.

00:08:03.180 You're not there to take over.

00:08:04.320 You're not there to lord yourself over a community.

00:08:08.780 You know, a couple of things.

00:08:09.920 Obviously, it's me here talking, and I'm going to put our best foot forward, but this isn't

00:08:14.320 our first facility.

00:08:15.620 This is our third Hof, and a Hof is basically a temple. 0.99

00:08:19.360 It's like a church where people practice house, true.

00:08:21.760 This is our third. People could take a look at our other Hoffs in those communities.

00:08:28.320 When you say you're third, you're third in the state of Minnesota?

00:08:32.940 No, no, no. I'm sorry. Our third in the United States. Our third in general.

00:08:38.080 We have one in Brownsville, California, and we have one in Linden, North Carolina.

00:08:43.800 Okay. And how long have those Hoffs, as you call them, how long have they been there? 0.92

00:08:47.820 and have there been any reported incidents of violence or threats

00:08:51.060 or anything associated with what they call white supremacy?

00:08:54.920 The one, Dorshoff, which is the one in Linden, is new as of this year.

00:09:01.160 It's been in operation since July, but no, certainly not since July.

00:09:05.960 There's been no problem.

00:09:06.820 And then our first one, Odenshoff in California, was established in 2015.

00:09:14.180 And no, not one incident.

00:09:16.080 As a matter of fact, a similar effort was made by the press to look in and find dirt.

00:09:22.640 And they called local law enforcement, they called everyone in the community,

00:09:25.960 and much to their chagrin, they couldn't find anything negative.

00:09:30.080 And that's not because something's hidden, it's because we're good neighbors.

00:09:33.500 You know what I found very interesting?

00:09:34.280 And we've had a good impact on our community.

00:09:36.240 I'm sure you have, and I'm sure you will in Murdoch.

00:09:38.220 But you know what I found interesting, Matt,

00:09:39.540 is here this manufactured fear being generated by a publication like the New York Times

00:09:46.680 And within, and I noted this in the first hour, within the context of this story,

00:09:52.340 here you guys are coming peaceably into town.

00:09:55.060 And as you just said, you want to be good neighbors, okay?

00:09:58.120 And so somebody calls the Catholic Church that is located in nearby Murdoch,

00:10:03.920 and they leave a message on the voicemail saying that, 0.50

00:10:06.300 I hope someone shoots up your church.

00:10:08.700 The Reverend Jeremy Cousero, who's mentioned in the story, 0.89

00:10:12.060 believes that the message was intended for you people,

00:10:14.400 but they turned it over to the police nonetheless and here you guys are coming in you know completely

00:10:19.280 under the radar not making demands not making fronts following all the laws being good neighbors

00:10:23.600 as you say and instead of you know you guys ladling out fear to the community somebody

00:10:28.840 calls with a message that apparently is intended for you people and saying that they hope that

00:10:32.580 somebody shoots up your church i wish that was the only incident of that um that's so far the 1.00

00:10:41.020 only wrong number um the girls being so angry that we're quote unquote a hate group are literally

00:10:51.260 telling us how much they hate us and very often saying and suggesting that they or a friend of

00:10:58.900 theirs ought to burn down our house with us in it um well and that's that's been a fairly common

00:11:07.280 refrain from the the forces of tolerance you know it really kind of mirrors what goes on in the rest 0.58

00:11:14.340 of society as well you know because you know those that say there's no room for a hate speech

00:11:20.800 whatever that is uh those who say there's no room for any kind of bullying or threatening or so on

00:11:26.860 and so forth these are the same people that are involved in this stuff on a much more regular

00:11:30.680 basis than the other side so that doesn't surprise me but what you know what else doesn't surprise me

00:11:35.920 is that I'm sure that the New York Times is aware of the fact that you guys have received consistent threats,

00:11:43.460 and they have not, of course, mentioned that in their story,

00:11:45.980 because that, of course, would change the entire scope of the narrative

00:11:48.520 that they want to try to convince people that you guys are, you know, this white supremacist group.

00:11:55.120 Well, you know, one thing that I do want to mention about folks in Murdoch,

00:12:01.240 this has not been coming from folks in Murdoch.

00:12:04.280 Now, I don't know Maria's, the legitimacy of Maria's fear or concern, but what we have had 100% so far as far as Murdoch interaction have been people coming by wishing us well, apologizing for the way we've been treated, and trying to reassure us that folks in that town are not all that way.

00:12:27.360 We've had a lot of really positive interactions with our neighbors in Murdoch.

00:12:31.160 um i feel that you know it seems to be the case that most of this you know manufactured outrage

00:12:37.980 as you put it is is not coming from murdoch itself or anybody who's had any actual interaction with

00:12:43.380 us which again is par for the course yeah yeah trying you know false flagging with all of these 0.78

00:12:50.860 kinds of threats and calls and you know all of you in inside the hof and and burn it down and 0.94

00:12:56.620 And, you know, all of this comes from, I would believe that.

00:12:59.420 I would believe that the folks in Murdoch are probably much more welcoming

00:13:03.320 and much more cordial than they're painted in the story in the New York Times.

00:13:08.700 Now, Matthew, I never heard of your group before.

00:13:12.880 I looked over your website, and the Asatru faith, can you kind of verbalize it for us?

00:13:21.200 It certainly is not a Christian faith by what I can tell.

00:13:24.260 I'm a Christian myself.

00:13:25.180 It doesn't seem to be a Christian faith, but as the Times story says, and correct me if they're wrong in this,

00:13:31.480 they say that you guys describe yourselves as a native pre-Christian spirituality organization.

00:13:37.980 Did they have at least that right?

00:13:41.060 Yeah.

00:13:41.780 Yeah, I changed the verbage just slightly, but yes, that at least fairly represents us.

00:13:46.400 Unfortunately, a lot of the other articles didn't mention that.

00:13:48.740 We've got a lot of people telling us, you know, about how—referencing us and how we're not properly practicing Christianity, which the story doesn't even tell these people that we're not Christians in a lot of cases. 0.99

00:14:01.460 No, that is correct.

00:14:03.020 I'd describe it in a way for your listeners here.

00:14:06.640 It's the worship of the native spirituality, the indigenous spirituality of European people as practiced before Christianity came.

00:14:18.740 and that's expressed in many forms um but also true specifically recognizes the divine in the

00:14:25.540 way that uh the the germanic peoples or the norse peoples would we worship odin thor balder fray

00:14:32.900 those gods that folks may be familiar with it that way so this is it almost seems like a viking faith

00:14:38.580 in a lot of ways right the vikings practiced australia certainly okay it goes back it goes

00:14:45.700 back much much longer than that i'd say it goes back to the ice age oh really okay all right and

00:14:53.460 yes the spiritual development of european peoples before outside faith uh came in in the conversion

00:15:01.700 all right and and dark-skinned people aren't usually associated with being northern european

00:15:08.340 people and so there is an exclusivity to your organization i believe in terms of who can

00:15:14.020 become a member and excuse me who cannot become a member and i've got no issue with it whatsoever

00:15:19.620 but can you can you go over those parameters and and the reasons why go ahead well because

00:15:25.060 we're an ethnic faith um we believe in ancestor worship and as at the furthest extension of that

00:15:31.540 we believe that our gods are our most ancient ancestors so our our way of approaching the

00:15:38.900 divine is is through our heritage and through our ethnicity and it's an ethnic faith in the same way

00:15:44.420 that many uh native american tribes worship um in the same way i believe that shinto practices

00:15:51.860 that a number of indigenous faiths around the world practice we have no belief that our religion

00:15:58.420 is the only religion that exists and everyone else should follow our faith we believe that all people

00:16:04.420 come from a unique religious background and and they all have their unique religion to their

00:16:10.740 people and we'd encourage them to celebrate that i'm sure that's a beautiful and wonderful thing

00:16:14.660 for them we just want that for us so you'd be almost like myself for you walking into uh it

00:16:20.180 sounds very tribal to me and it would be like you or me walking into a tribal place somewhere in

00:16:24.660 you know africa somewhere and asking if we could be a part of their ancestral tribe and and of

00:16:30.340 course they would say to us well you know you don't look like us you don't come from where we

00:16:33.540 come from um and so you know it's very difficult to to to kind of assimilate you into a culture

00:16:38.900 and into a people and into a tribal sort of environment that you have no connection with

00:16:43.700 absolutely yeah yeah is is this a uh what what what brought you to this faith if i uh if i can

00:16:51.060 ask him were you were you were you spiritual prior to joining the astral uh faith uh yeah i i was my

00:16:58.500 family was never a very religious family my immediate family certainly wasn't growing up

00:17:03.000 and I think like uh like most white people growing up in the 1980s your kind of default

00:17:11.540 assumption of religion is Christianity so I explored that as best I could um my aunt was

00:17:18.480 a very devout Jehovah's Witness or I say was she is a very devout Jehovah's Witness um so I looked

00:17:23.940 into that and I got involved in that for a little bit when I when I got out of high school um

00:17:28.080 trying to, you know, trying to fulfill that spiritual need that I had.

00:17:33.260 And I got to a point where I felt that the teachings of the Bible were really contrary to

00:17:38.840 how I felt and what felt like the right thing to do. And I got to a point where I didn't want to

00:17:47.600 be a hypocrite. And, you know, I read my Bible several times through and tried to make it fit, 0.64

00:17:52.260 and uh and it just didn't and so i made the choice that if if those were my options then

00:17:59.340 then i would choose not to be a christian and then so i started thinking you know i'm still

00:18:04.760 a spiritual person i don't think i'm doing anything wrong well what did my people have

00:18:08.740 before christianity and i knew history and stuff and so i kind of googled looking around and i

00:18:15.420 thought you know i was i was some weirdo off by myself doing this but i found uh found this guy

00:18:20.880 stephen mcnellen and the austral folk assembly and i i saw that wow there's there's people just

00:18:26.400 like me out there practicing this faith and worshiping you know worshiping these gods

00:18:32.400 this is a real thing and so i got hooked on that i got hooked on that in about 2001

00:18:37.360 and i spent a long time thinking and scoping it out and developing kind of practicing on my own

00:18:42.960 until i really became involved in 2009 with the austral folk assembly

00:18:46.720 let's get back to the the exclusivity aspect of it in terms of northern white europeans and and i

00:18:55.260 think i don't think there's any question that this is why the movement the organization the faith if

00:19:01.900 you will uh your faith um has come under such scrutiny and has uh seen the malicious attack

00:19:09.240 against you and your people and your faith and your organization uh if it was uh you know an

00:19:14.980 a true faith that allowed others to join to become part of this tribal culture to

00:19:22.600 assimilate into it of course if you showed the diversity and you showed the

00:19:26.800 multiculturalism even though when you think about it objectively and

00:19:30.640 seriously why would anyone want to be involved in a northern European ancient

00:19:37.000 sort of a faith that you people represent if they don't come out of that

00:19:41.200 gene pool to begin with matt they don't um and i can't say that no one does but those who want

00:19:50.800 to criticize what we do always bring up those examples we don't get applications from people

00:19:56.720 that aren't us that doesn't happen i can't say it's never happened but that's a manufactured

00:20:04.800 scenario that's that's not a real case um and yeah that's it's definitely targeted that way

00:20:13.400 if we were another group of people i don't think we would just be allowed to do this i think we'd

00:20:19.720 be celebrated for doing it and we've certainly seen that with native american groups or with

00:20:24.820 black groups or other folks that choose to take pride in their ethnicity and where they come from

00:20:29.980 And it's very unfortunate that we're not afforded that same courtesy.

00:20:34.240 Back to the story, one of the people quoted Ms. Brooks, who I believe is from either the ADL or the SPLC,

00:20:41.300 said that they're concerned, Matt, because your group continues to advance the desires of white nationalists to create a white ethnostate.

00:20:53.860 I don't have any issue with either of those things, but I'll let you answer for yourself.

00:20:58.740 Talk to that if you can.

00:21:00.580 You're wanting to advance the desires of white nationalists,

00:21:03.880 and you're wanting to create a white ethnostate.

00:21:10.540 That's due to some psychic behavior on their part.

00:21:14.040 That's not anything we've ever said, if I feel that way.

00:21:19.880 I mean, I don't have any great problem with white people having their own state,

00:21:25.220 But that's certainly not some fundamental principle of Ausitru or something that, you know, has been a huge teaching of the AFA in any way.

00:21:33.580 If white nationalists like what we do, then, you know, it's great.

00:21:39.200 I hope that all white people would come home to Ausitru and enjoy, you know, what we do and what we practice.

00:21:46.460 But there's certainly no huge white nationalist push by the Ausitru Folk Assembly.

00:21:51.140 We're about practicing our faith.

00:21:53.080 And we currently live in the country that we live in and the towns that we live in, and we have no desire to run anybody else out of town or do anything that way.

00:22:05.220 We simply want our building that we purchased to have our people worshiping our gods in it.

00:22:10.660 That's all.

00:22:11.100 does your support does your financial monetary support i guess like uh most groups uh most

00:22:19.840 churches and so on and so forth that it comes from the uh from the members itself i mean do

00:22:25.240 guys the tithes and offerings for instance or is that what you guys are involved in to sustain

00:22:30.480 operations to have the kind of money that was made available to purchase the building and

00:22:34.440 in murdoch uh yeah we have um and we're really moving away from just a membership model we would

00:22:41.060 have a standard monthly membership fee for a long time we've really moved towards percentage giving

00:22:46.220 we call it the hoff toller but yes it's very very similar to tithing um we have that and then

00:22:52.080 sometimes we have a targeted fundraising there was a lot of people that raised money specifically so

00:22:57.160 uh balder's hoff or hoff in minnesota could could not only be established but we could do remodel

00:23:03.080 work and get that up and running where can people go if they want to look at your website

00:23:07.240 www.runestone, r-u-n-e-s-t-o-n-e dot o-r-g.

00:23:18.300 Okay.

00:23:18.960 And speaking of that website, Runestone, according to the story again in the Times,

00:23:24.680 it says activities and behaviors, you say on the website that activities and behaviors

00:23:30.680 supportive of the white family should be encouraged, while those activities and behaviors

00:23:35.500 destructive of the white family are to be discouraged now as a white man myself i can

00:23:41.000 buy into that a million percent even though i'm not a part of your group i don't see anything

00:23:44.420 wrong with that in fact i think that any person no matter their color background ethnicity skin

00:23:49.820 color would subscribe to the same kind of tenets or philosophies for their own group of people

00:23:55.680 as you are apparently with what you know what is stated on your website yes well of course they

00:24:02.440 If you took the word white out and you put black, Native American, any other group of people in there, everyone, myself included, would think that's a great statement and a great set of goals.

00:24:17.980 As a matter of fact, we had a gentleman from the Nation of Islam, Minister Farrakhan Mohammed, reach out and say, he read our website and he thought what we were trying to do was great.

00:24:29.120 He wished us the best.

00:24:32.440 Take me inside, Matt, a service as best you can, depicting with words what a service in the Asa True Faith is like.

00:24:42.040 I'm intrigued by this.

00:24:43.940 So when do you guys meet?

00:24:46.220 I mean, is there a regular meeting time?

00:24:47.880 Is there a regular day?

00:24:49.400 Is this kind of all over the place?

00:24:51.160 Bring me into that.

00:24:52.300 And what goes on in the service?

00:24:54.920 We're pretty spread out.

00:24:56.900 I would love to have a day where we have a lot more membership density and we can get together once a week.

00:25:01.760 But as it is now at our house, we typically get together at least once a month, once a month for some kind of a monthly observance.

00:25:13.080 Folks come and kind of hang out and fellowship and spend the day together.

00:25:17.460 We often, during that time, we'll have different discussions, classes we'll lead, and just kind of spend the day enjoying each other's company.

00:25:29.100 We, you know, eating is always an important part.

00:25:31.940 We'll have a, you know, have lunch.

00:25:34.260 Usually in the evening, we'll have a feast and have a real nice meal together.

00:25:38.940 Our main worship practice is called bloat.

00:25:43.200 And we'll get together.

00:25:46.300 Typically, we'll form a circle, but it depends.

00:25:48.820 Sometimes, like in Murdoch, the way it's set up, we'll be doing it inside.

00:25:52.960 In California, we often do it outside.

00:25:55.440 Gather around in a circle.

00:25:56.880 and we share with our gods so basically the idea is we're exchanging our devotion our love our

00:26:08.780 loyalty our energy with the gods and assuming they accept that and appreciate it they're bestowing

00:26:15.800 their their inspiration their blessings their strength on us and we do this through a ceremonial

00:26:22.000 sharing of a horn of mead.

00:26:24.780 So we'll have a big mead horn

00:26:26.300 and we'll take it around the

00:26:28.020 I guess to take it back

00:26:30.280 a second. We'll gather people in the circle

00:26:31.960 and then we'll speak about why we're there.

00:26:34.380 We'll address the god

00:26:36.340 or the goddess that we're doing

00:26:37.880 our ritual to that day.

00:26:40.140 We'll ask them to be present.

00:26:42.220 We'll speak to them

00:26:44.400 or the go-fi who is performing the service

00:26:46.480 will speak to them.

00:26:48.880 And in praising

00:26:50.480 and in worshiping them, we'll go around and each person will touch the horn and put their

00:26:55.720 energy into the horn. If it's a small group, maybe they'll make a toast towards that god

00:27:00.780 with the horn. We'll take that around in the circle, we'll pour the horn out into the

00:27:05.060 fire or into a receptacle and give that to the gods. And then we'll hold the horn aloft

00:27:12.200 and we'll ask that the gods give us their blessing in return. And we'll take the horn

00:27:17.440 around again if it's a small group everybody you know can have a sip of the horn as it goes around

00:27:21.880 if it's a larger group we'll dip often an evergreen sprig in there and uh us purge the

00:27:28.920 gathered folk in that circle and share that um that's that's our main worship service that we do

00:27:36.420 uh there's another religious practice that we often do in the evenings called sample

00:27:41.620 and that that's a ritual toasting so we'll all sit down usually in some kind of a you know

00:27:48.940 however we got the setup laid out in the hoth and we'll go in a circle and we'll do rounds of

00:27:54.620 toasting it's usually three rounds the first round we'll be raising the horn to one of our gods

00:28:00.220 in you know an appreciation and celebration of that god we'll make a toast and we'll pass the

00:28:05.920 horn around but a second round we honor our ancestors now sometimes that's our distant

00:28:10.880 ancestors or some great hero but very often that's you know i raise this horn to my grandfather

00:28:15.960 we'll tell a story about our grandfather and we'll have a toast and we'll go around

00:28:19.340 then the third one's more open and often that's celebrating a hero maybe celebrating somebody in

00:28:25.200 the room who's done something that we want to raise a toast to it's also a time that people

00:28:29.360 sometimes will recite a poem maybe sing a song that they've composed to celebrate house the truth

00:28:35.620 And that's what a typical day at one of our houses is like.

00:28:41.040 And then I'd imagine to conclude each ceremony each day,

00:28:44.280 you don robes and hoods and you burn a few crosses on a few lawns.

00:28:49.300 They wait until I'm not there if that's what we're doing.

00:28:53.140 I tell you.

00:28:53.980 I think that if folks attended one of our services

00:28:57.380 or were able to peep in and see this,

00:29:00.240 they'd be very underwhelmed at all of the horrible hate crimes

00:29:04.040 they think are going on because it's really not about that what they're more likely to see

00:29:08.360 is people you know crying because they're they're telling a story about their their grandmother

00:29:13.800 or because we're doing a baby naming there's not a dry eye in the room because we're talking about

00:29:18.040 how much we love each other yeah you know matt listen i'm i'm so glad you came on tonight to

00:29:24.680 articulate much of what you've talked about with me so far here tonight it just goes to show you

00:29:30.120 how unfortunately simple-minded people have become and how easily led astray they can become

00:29:37.620 with a hit piece in the New York Times or in other newspapers and periodicals when they read

00:29:43.280 something which is manufactured and intended to generate a negative slant in the mind of the

00:29:49.940 reader. And people will take their cues and make their decisions based on a bunch of misinformation

00:29:56.700 without doing research on their own,

00:29:59.180 without taking the time to find out

00:30:00.780 the veracity of the claims that are made

00:30:02.980 in not only the New York Times story,

00:30:04.580 but any story in any paper or any publication

00:30:06.760 or any online platform.

00:30:09.400 You guys sound absolutely horrifying

00:30:11.540 in what you do and the ways that you do it.

00:30:13.840 It's not for me, but okay, fine.

00:30:16.460 You sound horrifying.

00:30:17.740 I can see why, based upon what you've said so far, Matt,

00:30:20.020 the people of Murdoch, Minnesota

00:30:21.520 have got a lot to be concerned about

00:30:23.280 when you guys move in and kick all this off. 0.79

00:30:26.300 Now, let me ask you, when you go in and you open these, as you call them, HOFs, that's H-O-F, correct?

00:30:33.960 Yes, sir.

00:30:34.300 All right, so when you open these HOFs and you go into a community such as Murdoch, will you network when you go into town?

00:30:41.840 Will you pass out leaflets? Will you try to get people to come to your church, or your HOF, excuse me, to find out about your faith and what you guys do?

00:30:51.760 Or is it a situation in which people will approach you of their own volition and then they've got to fill out an application and you've got to review it before making them an official member?

00:31:01.240 Well, it's mostly the latter.

00:31:03.080 And I'm not going to say that we'll never go out and spread the word about what we do.

00:31:07.800 I mean, obviously, we're proud of what we do, but we're not pushy.

00:31:11.120 We don't have some kind of a door-to-door ministry to where we're, you know, trying to make the right word.

00:31:18.940 because I don't want to insult people that do.

00:31:20.360 That's just not really the way we do things.

00:31:22.900 But, yeah, I'm sure that we'll talk to people about what we do

00:31:25.640 because we're proud of who we are and what we do.

00:31:27.900 And as far as networking in the community,

00:31:29.980 we'd love to be involved in the community.

00:31:31.920 We'd love to interact with and be involved with everybody in the community.

00:31:36.660 But we have no desire to push ourselves or push our beliefs on anybody else.

00:31:42.680 Do you feel a, you know, getting back to your service

00:31:45.700 and the gods that you pray to, you know, in the Nordic sense, if you will, the Viking sense.

00:31:52.120 And this is something that goes way back, as you say, to the Ice Ages, your faith, if you will.

00:31:59.640 On a daily basis, now I'm a Christian, and so, you know, we always have been told to, you know,

00:32:06.460 and I think it's good that we read the Bible and we get into God's Word

00:32:09.220 and we feel an intimate personal connection with God and with Jesus Christ and so on and so forth.

00:32:14.440 In the same way that I do as a Christian, as a born-again believer, I might add, do you feel that sense of connectivity to these gods that you pray to, that you remember, that you pay homage to?

00:32:27.580 I mean, do you feel it to the point of it being an intimate indwelling within your own being, if I can ask you like that?

00:32:37.200 Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:39.860 Very much so.

00:32:40.960 and uh it's it's hard because the relationship isn't quite the same we don't have the concept

00:32:49.320 that that like odin is your personal lord and savior as christians feel about jesus

00:32:54.200 but the relationship to our gods and more importantly not more importantly but more

00:32:59.940 personally the relationship with our ancestors absolutely i feel that and i know that with

00:33:05.580 every fiber of my being to be a real thing it's one of the coolest things when you get together

00:33:10.760 at one of these and you've been doing it a while one of the best things that i have as a gofi is

00:33:15.940 i'm able to look in the eyes of somebody when it becomes real to them for the first time i don't

00:33:21.080 know if you run into this in christianity but there's a lot of people who say they believe

00:33:24.360 you know there's no atheists and foxholes there's a lot of people that you know inherently feel like

00:33:28.640 they should believe sure there's something really special when you see in somebody's eyes like oh

00:33:33.300 wow this this is real i feel this and absolutely i have that feeling and and so to you know so

00:33:40.500 a great many of our folk what does your faith believe in in terms of and and do you believe

00:33:46.420 in matthew do you believe in an afterlife and and and and how do you get to that afterlife and uh

00:33:51.460 tell me about that absolutely um so how do you get to that afterlife i suppose like most well

00:34:00.100 first of all number one well number one you you you without question believe in an afterlife

00:34:05.960 Yes, sir.

00:34:06.420 Okay, go ahead.

00:34:07.500 I'm sorry.

00:34:08.820 So I think that there's different options.

00:34:11.340 I think in general, we don't have some great concept of a damnation situation.

00:34:19.340 What most often happens with most people is they go to be with their ancestors,

00:34:24.060 and they look on from beyond the veil after their descendants.

00:34:28.820 That's part of a lot of our religious observance,

00:34:31.200 is communing with our ancestors that are still protecting and watching over and taking care of

00:34:37.480 our families, much like they did in life. We believe strongly in that. And then for those

00:34:42.280 few, those heroes, those people who've done something great or who've had that spiritual

00:34:46.400 awakening, we believe that those people can ascend and become closer to the gods. And that's often

00:34:52.060 pictured at going to one of the halls of the gods. I think the most common thing is the Viking idea

00:34:58.580 When a man dies in battle, in that battle ecstasy, going to Valhalla, we believe that if you ascend and you evolve to a certain point spiritually, then you can be closer to the gods in that sense.

00:35:13.840 Is it fair for me to say that you believe and your faith believes that this is really, in the end, it comes down to bloodline?

00:35:20.980 um yes and no i think that your connection to the gods through your ancestry yes is essential

00:35:33.440 and important because if you were of a different people if you're black if you're indian if you're 0.77

00:35:38.520 whatever else then you're not going to go to our gods you're going to go to your gods

00:35:42.720 but i think that's where the bloodline is is is really important the other thing is

00:35:48.640 Your bloodline in the sense that when you pass, you go and you spend time with your ancestors, perhaps our ancestors.

00:35:56.420 But I think that's a completely different and separate thing than, you know, a completely unrelated group of people and their ancestors.

00:36:03.300 And where do you guys come down on the issue of sin? Talk to me about that.

00:36:09.760 Do you believe in the concept of sin? 0.91

00:36:11.440 well so sin as i understand it in a christian context or a jewish context would be falling

00:36:20.660 short of the glory of god it would be transgressing some one of god's rules ours is a little bit

00:36:26.520 different because it's much more about principles than it is about a like a like a legal violation

00:36:31.660 of something but you live nobly or you live ignobly and there's many behaviors that are

00:36:37.540 noble and there's many behaviors that are noble you can't erase the score if

00:36:42.760 you've done wrong but you can counterbalance it by doing significantly

00:36:47.560 more right would you I'm listening to everything you're saying and I'm trying

00:36:54.520 to wrap my mind around this whole thing at the same time that so bear with me

00:36:57.820 here would you would you object if someone referred to the Asa true faith

00:37:03.100 faith as a pagan religion? No, I choose not to myself because paganism often has a lot of

00:37:11.640 associations with hippie types, and that's just, you know, we're a much more conservative group

00:37:18.000 of people than that, but no, I wouldn't object to that. That's certainly not phonetically wrong.

00:37:22.360 Is your organization looking, obviously I think you're looking to grow, and is this a faith that

00:37:28.720 is more common and more prevalent in other parts of the world than it is here in the United States?

00:37:33.900 And if so, where is this most prevalent in the world, the Astero faith?

00:37:38.360 You know, I don't think so. Honestly, we've seen the rebirth of our faith, and I say the rebirth

00:37:44.100 because, you know, all of Europe was pretty much converted to Christianity, and the rebirth of

00:37:49.500 Asteroid took place in the late 60s and early 70s. You see most of that rebirth activity taking

00:37:56.160 place in the united states so i think the united states is probably the most popular area for this

00:38:01.220 but we also see a lot of folks in scandinavia practice um the country outside of the united

00:38:07.000 states where we have the most membership is in sweden in sweden okay and we have members in 15

00:38:15.420 different countries right right and how many members would you say of the also true faith

00:38:20.560 in sweden of the austral faith i really could not tell you of the austral folk assembly about seven

00:38:27.760 so there's a difference between the faith and the assembly there's a okay so

00:38:35.920 yes there's people that would say they practice outside that are not a member of the austral folk

00:38:40.000 assembly certainly um we believe that we are practicing house true correctly and we would

00:38:46.480 want all of the people who practice Ossetru to join us and practice through the Ossetru Folk

00:38:51.440 Assembly. But yes, there's people who are Ossetru who are not members of the Ossetru Folk Assembly.

00:38:54.900 In the Ossetru Folk Assembly, do you recognize and or believe in an entity known as Satan or an

00:39:02.240 equivalent of? No. Yeah, no. And we do absolutely believe in good and evil in the sense that we

00:39:12.480 believe in order and chaos and there's certainly entities that we believe in

00:39:16.560 that are that are bad or that are you know on the other team but no we don't

00:39:21.900 have a character that equates really well to say and and again how many

00:39:26.340 members confirmed in the United States right now that you know of it'd be hard

00:39:32.880 because I got to divide our membership but you got a ball just up here and

00:39:35.760 there so yeah I'd say say about 650 or so in the United States all right six

00:39:41.760 650 and i would imagine these are people matthew from all walks of life undergoing all different

00:39:47.020 kinds of occupations absolutely so you're talking you're talking high profile positions or or you

00:39:55.380 know uh things like doctors and lawyers and right down to sales people and truck drivers and so on

00:40:01.360 and so forth really across the board we have you know an extreme variance as far as uh different

00:40:10.380 types of career you know successful or not successful people have had all kind of different

00:40:15.440 experience a lot of veterans do you look at the could could the new york times piece and the

00:40:22.960 coverage that you're getting from the paper of record not only in this country but in the world

00:40:28.220 uh even though it is extremely uh slanted in a in a negative and and and a malicious sort of a way

00:40:35.280 that is undeserving obviously of your group of your organization of the members that are

00:40:40.140 part of it do you believe that this could actually be a silver lining in some ways have you folks

00:40:44.240 talked about how shining a light on what you're doing even though it's wrong would compel people

00:40:49.940 to become aware of what you're doing and then if they're interested contacting you and seeing what

00:40:55.260 this is all about it has and it does our membership is significantly up since they started the media

00:41:02.180 persecutions in murdoch i say that it always makes us uncomfortable when we get these kind of

00:41:08.040 articles, because I don't want to see our members face that kind of persecution. I don't want the

00:41:14.140 threats and the scare tactics toward them, and I would never seek those out. But when we do get

00:41:19.500 the attention, every time they think they're hurting us, we get a nice membership bump.

00:41:25.340 You get a little bump, yeah, because of the visibility, yeah. Have you responded on your

00:41:32.680 own proactively to to the times piece uh you or any of your other people in your organization to

00:41:38.380 try to and not that they would let you but to try to set the record straight and bring some truth

00:41:43.080 into the narrative rather than the malicious slings and arrows that have come your way

00:41:46.600 not really because we don't know the best way or or a way to get our voice heard on it um

00:41:54.900 and we certainly don't want to further further the onslaught i mean that's certainly the reason

00:41:59.840 that i jumped at coming on your program um i would love to do things where i can actually speak and

00:42:06.140 it's not you know a cherry-picked um you know word or phrase here or there however they want to use

00:42:11.620 it uh but but i'd love to have opportunities in that way if you go on if someone goes online

00:42:19.120 matthew can they see an asatru uh ceremony for lack of a better word is is there anything that

00:42:26.920 that people could, for instance, if I'm intrigued just because I'm intrigued and I want to go and

00:42:30.460 I want to see if I can see what you guys do, is there anything online that would allow me to see

00:42:34.180 that? So, sort of, and we talked about this within the group as maybe doing some example

00:42:40.420 bloats and symbols so people could see how it's done, but we don't really videotape our ceremonies

00:42:47.520 because it takes something away to the sacrality of what we're doing. But what I would suggest,

00:42:52.160 if you want to check it out and just see what it looks like, if you go and look something on YouTube,

00:42:56.920 Our YouTube channel has got a lot of videos.

00:43:00.340 You know, they've got plenty of videos of me talking,

00:43:02.140 but there's also videos of kind of slideshows of our gatherings

00:43:06.500 and what those look like and the kind of people that show up

00:43:08.940 and the kind of stuff we do.

00:43:10.080 And, you know, I'd love it if people wanted to go check that out.

00:43:13.900 It's 10 minutes to the hour.

00:43:14.860 It's Matthew Flavell.

00:43:16.060 He's a high priest in the Asa True Folk Assembly.

00:43:18.260 He's joined us on the show here this evening here in hour number two

00:43:20.840 to refute much of what was written in the January the 9th hit piece

00:43:23.860 by the New York Times.

00:43:24.780 headline to that piece fear spreads in minnesota town as extremist group moves to open a church and

00:43:31.560 then the sub sub headline says many residents of murdoch minnesota said they were horrified that

00:43:35.840 an organization condemned by watchdogs as a white supremacist hate group would open a church city

00:43:40.820 leaders said they had little choice but to grant a uh permit it is unfortunate is it not matt that

00:43:47.020 there are specific organizations out there like the ADL, like the SPLC, and others that

00:43:54.260 have this power that they can wield in a cultural sense, a sphere of influence to categorize

00:44:03.640 not only your group, but whomever they want to smear in any way, shape, or form and distribute

00:44:09.360 information and trying to poison people's minds about whether it's your group or my

00:44:14.340 show or this publication or that online platform that these people have this kind of power and they

00:44:20.740 demonstrate that power all the time to the point where the leading paper in the uh in the country

00:44:25.000 did the smear piece on on your organization well it is and and you know not that it would be okay

00:44:33.080 if it was but a lot of people don't understand the splc and the abl are not government agencies

00:44:40.920 they're not accountable to any there are private agencies that decide to engage in name calling

00:44:49.020 but that name calling is taken as you know the last word in who's a hate group

00:44:56.620 and they've shown they don't even you don't have to do anything hateful for them to call you a

00:45:02.580 hate group i don't really want to encourage people to go check it out and go give them the

00:45:07.160 the energy but if you look at their article on us they don't allege that we've done or said

00:45:12.320 anything hateful but they know what we really mean yeah um yeah not one instance we had a reporter

00:45:18.880 trying to get dirt and you know he came to me frustrated because he couldn't find anything

00:45:23.100 he told me the spLC said there was three things that made us hate group so the first one we believe

00:45:28.980 there is a biological component to race so does everyone so does any forensic anthropologist so

00:45:38.540 does any doctor so it's just the thing right secondly we have an archaic view of gender 0.99

00:45:45.000 i think they mean because we believe boys have a penis girls have a vagina right right 0.99

00:45:52.440 apparently that's not a thing in 2021 two strikes against you already 1.00

00:45:56.460 and then number three we spread the white nationalist propaganda of a white genocide

00:46:02.540 in south africa which we could name it something different but we do have charitable outreach to

00:46:08.480 support white farmers who have been dispossessed and targeted for ethnic cleansing in that country

00:46:16.420 and people can look that up that's not something that i made up no i mean that's that's that that's

00:46:21.400 clearly established in fact i'm running something on my website right now a story of the latest

00:46:25.600 farm slaughter that went on down in South Africa. And let me say, I applaud your organization for

00:46:31.140 supporting those people down in South Africa, because it obviously is what you just said. 0.82

00:46:36.160 It's a white genocidal cleansing of South African white people down there, and it's a very dangerous 0.85

00:46:41.060 situation. I had a guest on my show months ago who joined me from South Africa to talk about 0.64

00:46:45.960 all of that. Well, those are three strikes clearly against you. You guys are out. So go back down,

00:46:51.020 You know, sit on the end of the bench and just take all the smearing and all of the stigmatizing that's coming your way, Matt.

00:46:57.800 Now, to wrap up our conversation here, okay, I'm sure that if you or anyone in your group ever met Maria Barron, a central piece of the New York Times piece, that you would be cordial, respectful to her, to anyone in town, I would imagine.

00:47:16.140 But if Maria Barron came to you, Matt, and said, Matt, I want to join the Assetru Folk Assembly, but I am a person from Central America, you would not be able to welcome her in to your organization, which is your right, which is anyone's right.

00:47:32.800 But what would you say, if you could say something to Maria Barron, who was, you know, quoted in that story, as you guys continue to press forward with opening up your huff in Murdoch, Minnesota, what would you say, not only to Maria Barron, but to the entire community of Murdoch, Minnesota?

00:47:52.260 I would ask that you judge us on our own merits and not on something that the newspaper told you you're supposed to think about us.

00:48:00.540 I'd ask that you give us an opportunity

00:48:02.840 and you know what else I'd ask

00:48:04.300 when you see us there

00:48:06.200 if you have a question or a concern

00:48:08.000 come on by and have a conversation

00:48:10.280 I would love to speak to you

00:48:12.500 I know that our people there would love to speak to you

00:48:15.120 we could probably get

00:48:16.560 you know you may not leave agreeing

00:48:18.820 with us

00:48:19.500 but you'll leave not scared of us

00:48:22.260 and I mean that

00:48:24.780 I would encourage anybody in Murdoch

00:48:26.700 Minnesota that wants to stop by and

00:48:28.480 say hi

00:48:30.100 and address any kind of concern or fear they might have, we'd be happy to talk to you.

00:48:36.000 Matthew, I'd like to thank you for your time tonight.

00:48:38.220 It's been a very interesting hour, very revealing.

00:48:41.340 You've answered all of my questions.

00:48:43.180 You were candid and straightforward, and I can't thank you.

00:48:46.380 I wish you and your group nothing but the best moving ahead, and I'm glad that you came on board.

00:48:50.780 As I said, I was able to reach your organization in ways, I guess, that the venerable newspaper,

00:48:55.600 the paper of record, The New York Times, was not able to.

00:48:57.640 So this has been a real pleasure talking with you, and I thank you, and I respect what you're doing.

00:49:02.460 Hey, thank you so much.

00:49:03.960 I appreciate the opportunity so much to come on your program tonight.

00:49:07.060 I hope you guys have a great night.

00:49:08.440 Thank you, Matthew.

Asatru Folk Assembly - August 25, 2021

Matt Flavel on The Patrick Ryan Show (2021)

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